A Space Between Life and Death
by aces
Summary: I hesitate to put this up, it's so...bizarre in tone. But uh, read it, and...well, don't be offended???


Thoughts on death (so needs a better title)

I started writing this because I noticed I hadn't been writing any I-Man fic lately and it saddened me--and after watching Darien variously lose his brother again (and the chance to get the gland out of his head), go to jail, lose his memory (and be played by everyone on the face of the planet at the same time because he was so vulnerable), taken hostage, meet a rather creepy former experiment of his brother's, and everything else under the sun, I really needed to figure out how the hell this poor boy could keep going.So this is the story I came up with--the quirky tone is probably very, very odd for the content, but somehow it seems peculiarly I-Man like to me.You'll see.Any knowledge I have of trauma comes from _ER, and I've __still probably got it all wrong, but try not to get too annoyed with my mistakes.The quote that Darien uses at the end belongs to none other than __Dr. Who.Of course.*smirk*Don't own the characters, make no money off the story.And the only real spoilers actually happen here, in the author's notes.Reviews are welcome but be nice, please, I'm sensitive.;-) _

A Space Between Life and Death

_Christ! Darien Fawkes thought in amazement.__Is this it?_

_Pretty stupid way to die his internal voice added after a pause.It wasn't a particularly helpful comment to make._

He and Bobby had been going after some drug-dealing kids when the kids decided to turn the table on them, making the two federal agents run for their lives instead.Only one of the kids--_This was supposed to be a no-brainer job, dammit! Darien's head railed at him, again most unhelpfully--had just shot Darien.In the chest.He could feel blood leaking out of him as he lay stunned on the ground, staring up through the city buildings at the sky that seemed so very far away from him at the moment._

"FAWKES!" Bobby's voice seemed to fill up the air of the entire street, and then Bobby's head filled up Darien's vision too as the older agent leant over him."Oh God Fawkes--"His partner looked helpless and scared, Darien noticed in even more surprise.He still wasn't over his earlier amazement at being shot."C'mon Fawkes, you're gonna be okay, you're gonna be okay, stay with me Fawkes!"

_Uh, Bobby... Darien thought and imagined raising his hand and waving it at his partner in his usual mock exasperation.__Somehow I don't think that's gonna happen.He managed to gesture weakly toward his chest with his hand as if to say __Hel-lo__, Hobbes!Take a look!_

"It's okay, Fawkes," Hobbes said, digging his cell phone out of his pocket."Just hang in there."He was sniffling, trying not to--cry?

_Aw crap Darien thought, panicking._

"Claire!Get down here _now, Darien's been shot in the chest," Hobbes yelled into his phone.He snapped the phone shut, dropped it uncaringly to the ground (__'Fish ain't gonna be happy with that, Darien found himself thinking fuzzily and made a mental note to get his priorities straight)."Dammit, Fawkes!Why couldn't you get the frick out of the fricking way of the fricking bullet?"_

_Oh yeah, like I'm gonna see the damn thing coming and be able to duck!_

"I'm sorry, man," Hobbes went on, completely changing his tone of voice."I'm so sorry, I should've protected you."

_How the hell could you have protected me? Darien wondered internally._

"You're my partner!I can't believe I let you down..."

Darien struggled to speak."Not--your--_fault," he rasped out through clenched teeth.His numbed, almost comical surprise was wearing off.Pain was setting in.As was the realization that he was--dying._

"Yes it is!" Bobby yelled back.Darien reached out--thank God Hobbes was leaning right over him and not sitting any further away--and grabbed the older man's hand.

"No--it's--not."

"You're gonna argue with me _now?" Hobbes shouted in extreme aggravation._

Darien grinned as well as he could under the circumstances."What--else--to do?" he asked.

He felt surprisingly good for a dying man.Remarkably upbeat even.But that was in part because of the great surge of relief flooding through him.He was _free.No more gland.No more quicksilver madness.No more Chrysalis.No more Arnaud.No more need for revenge against his brother's death.No more screwing around._

It was so easy to get pulled down.Dragged down by all the crap that happened to him on a daily basis.He could out depress a cemetery.Turn a therapist insane (if they weren't all a little whacked-out anyway, which Darien personally thought could very well be true).There were times when he seriously couldn't figure out how the hell he kept going from day to day.And then he realized--it wasn't worth it.Letting all the shit depress him wasn't gonna change a thing.And it sure as hell wasn't gonna help him keep going from day to day.

So he'd been getting better at shrugging it off and carrying on.At accepting things.

Still, it was a very great, heartfelt relief to be free of it all completely at last.No matter how much you tried to ignore the fact that half the world was on your tail trying to kill you, you were a walking time bomb set to go off whenever you didn't get your counteragent in time, and you were chained to possibly the weirdest government agency ever, the stress still got to you more often than not.And half the time you didn't even notice.

_Hey, Darien realized.__Chrysalis and/or Arnaud didn't even get the chance to kill me.Cool._

"No, Fawkes, stay with me," Bobby's voice abruptly penetrated the haze surrounding Darien's meandering thoughts."Don't you dare die on me now Fawkes!"

Darien squeezed Bobby's hand after making sure he still had a hold of it.Hobbes squeezed it back with determination.

_I love ya, man Darien thought at him.It took too much energy he didn't have to say the words aloud.__I would never have survived all of this without you, ya know that?You taught me a lot and I thank you for it, my friend._

"Oh thank God," Bobby said in relief, looking up from his worried gaze down at Darien."Over here, Keep!" he hollered.

And now Claire's face instead of Hobbes's was looming in Darien's limited field of vision."Come on, Darien," she said tensely, her accent thickening on his name."Stay with me, all right?"She was trying to keep her professional distance as she worked on him, stabilizing him, whatever she was doing to his chest, but Darien saw tears glimmering in her eyes.He knew that wasn't good.

"It's--okay--Claire," he told her, wanting to comfort her.He'd put her through all kinds of crap, he knew.But she'd always come through for him despite it all.And he was touched that she was trying not to cry for him.He hadn't realized she cared about him that much.

"That's right, Darien," she soothed as he felt himself being put on a stretcher by a couple of the strong-armed agents Claire had brought with her."It's going to be okay."He was slid into the back of the old Agency van, Claire hopping in after him and somehow finding room to sit next to him.

Darien closed his eyes."Darien?" her tone became worried."Darien!"She took his wrist to check his pulse, but he took hold of her hand and squeezed it, as hard as he could--which wasn't very hard, he realized and tried not to be scared.

"That's right, Darien," Claire said softly, failing to hide the relief and tears in her voice."Stay with us.You'll be safe, I promise."

He was numb again, his thoughts scattering beyond his ability to control them.A wave of panic washed over him._Wait!I'm not ready! he hollered--at himself?At a God he didn't quite believe in?For all his thoughts on philosophy, they weren't being particularly helpful now.__I haven't told my friends...__good-bye..._

He didn't notice it when he slipped into unconsciousness.

* * *

Darien woke up to a bright light shining in his eyes.He winced and closed his eyes again.

"Aw crap," he tried to say but something was in the way, barring his ability to speak._Aw crap! he thought again in panic.What the hell was he gonna do if he couldn't even __talk?_

"Fawkes!"A delighted voice on Darien's right said.

"Hobbes?" Darien tried again, surprised, but still couldn't speak.

"Darien, don't try to talk."Now it was Claire's voice, warm and soothing and on his left side."You've got a tube down your throat.Now I'm going to help you take it out, all right?But you have to follow my directions."

Darien opened his eyes again; this time, the Keeper was standing over him, blocking the blinding light so he could see properly.He nodded, trying not to appear worried.He had a feeling he failed, judging by the reassuring smile Claire gave him.

A minute or two later she was saying, "All right, you can talk now but only if absolutely necessary.And _whisper, all right?"_

Again Darien nodded.The way his throat felt right now, he wasn't quite up to speaking yet anyway.

"How d'you feel, my friend?" Bobby's voice reminded Darien of the first words he'd heard upon regaining consciousness and that there was somebody else in the room--the ex-thief's eyes so far had only been on Claire, disbelieving he was still alive and uncertain why he'd been so sure he should have been dead. His memory was very cloudy at the moment about what had happened to leave him lying on this bed unconscious.He looked over to smile at Hobbes delightedly, totally grooving on what felt like a second chance at living.Hobbes didn't quite manage to smile back; his face was too sober, too aged by worry and concern."You had us scared there."

Now Darien remembered being shot.He remembered lying on the ground in the street and being almost deliriously unconcerned by what was happening to him; he remembered what he'd been thinking about Hobbes and the Keeper before passing out.And suddenly he was a helluva lot more sober too.He held out his hand, noticed the needle attached to an IV in the arm above the tattoo, before Hobbes clasped it.

"Good to have you back, my friend."Bobby's eyes were hooded, his voice heavy with a deeper meaning than the simple words conveyed.

"Indeed," Claire quietly chimed in on Darien's other side.Darien looked over at her again, held her gaze for a moment, hoping she could read the gratitude there.She smiled at him warmly, genuinely.He smiled back, happy again."Thankfully the bullet missed your heart.Still, you've lost a lot of blood and have been unconscious for a few days now.You'll be out of commission for a couple weeks at _least_--no invisibility in other words, got that?Which reminds me," she went on, standing up in preparation to leave, "I'll tell the Official you're awake."Her voice became studiously neutral."Eberts will be relieved to hear it."

"So will Monroe," added Hobbes in a deceptively innocent tone.He and the Keep shared a secretive smirk before Claire left, making Darien wonder just what had been going on around him while he was unconscious.He'd have to get his partner to dish, first chance he got.

"You okay, Darien?" Bobby asked in concern and Darien shifted his gaze--he'd been spacing out, he realized, probably why Bobby was worried--back to his partner.He gave the older man a thumbs-up and a little grin.Bobby grinned back.

"Thought I lost you, man," Hobbes said after a moment."Don't do that to me again, you hear?"

"Never," Darien whispered.

Yeah, there was a lot of crap in his life.Yeah, a lot of people would be glad to see him dead--or use him for their own purposes before killing him off.Yeah, he was never truly safe, never truly sane anymore.

But was anyone?

He wasn't ready to say good-bye to his friends yet.He'd realized that just before losing consciousness back there in the van; he'd realized it again after regaining it here in the Agency building."While there's life, there's hope," someone once said, Darien remembered. And he was still alive to prove it.A pleased little grin stole across his face without his realizing.

"Hey Bobby," Darien rasped out almost under his breath.

"Yeah, Fawkes?"

"Still wasn't your fault."

"Yes it was," Hobbes snapped back immediately with an ill-concealed smirk.

Darien's grin blossomed once more on his face.

_While there's life, there's hope he thought to himself again in great satisfaction._


End file.
